48
What are you opinions on the recent Middle East protests?
Recently, a blatantly offensive, and quite frankly, shockingly bad, piece of media has gained viral attention around the world, due to its deptiction of the Islamic prophet Mohammed as a slovenly, abusive, drunkard (simply depicting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam).
This has caused thousands of people to protest around the Middle East. In Egypt, thousands rallied around the US embassy, where they vandalise it, and burnt the American flag there. In Libya, a peaceful protest was taking place, when a small group of terrorists attacked the embassy. They killed three security staff, and the US ambassador died from smoke inhalation. There have also been protests in Iran, Qatar, Yemen, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and probably others.
This has resulted in a large political fallout, both between the US and other nations, as well as within the US.
Presidental candidate Romney jumped onto a statement issued by the US Cario embassy (often percieved to be trying to defuse the situation, and prevent further violence), and rejected their apology for a constituents 'abuse' of free speech. This leads to a further debate - to what extent should individuals use their free speech, where it could insult others, even cause violence to others?
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2012/09/20129130543708779.html